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The sun had already set by the time I had ridden up to Kislovodsk myself and my horse both utterly spent! My servant told me that Werner had called, and he handed me two notes: one from Werner, the other... from Vera.
All my patients are occupied with that important piece of news; but you know what these patients are: they know everything." "This is one of Grushnitski's tricks," I said to myself. "To prove the falsity of these rumours, doctor, I may mention, as a secret, that I am moving to Kislovodsk to-morrow"... "And Princess Mary, too?" "No, she remains here another week"...
I gathered from his words that various ugly rumours were already being spread about the town on the subject of Princess Mary and myself: Grushnitski shall smart for this! I HAVE been in Kislovodsk three days now. Every day I see Vera at the well and out walking. In the morning, when I awake, I sit by my window and direct my lorgnette at her balcony.
Rasputin, by the way, did not fail to give Protopopoff the Kaiser's message, and three days after our return to Petrograd Kartzoff was enticed away from there by means of a forged telegram, a week later his body being found in a wood near Kislovodsk, in the North Caucasus, while two other witnesses against the Minister of War were arrested, and died later in the island fortress of Schlüsselburg.
VERA and her husband left this morning for Kislovodsk. I met their carriage as I was walking to Princess Ligovski's. Vera nodded to me: reproach was in her glance. Who is to blame, then? Why will she not give me an opportunity of seeing her alone? Love is like fire if not fed it dies out. Perchance, jealousy will accomplish what my entreaties have failed to do.
To weep is healthy, and then, no doubt, if I had not ridden as I did and had not been obliged to walk fifteen versts on my way back, sleep would not have closed my eyes on that night either. I returned to Kislovodsk at five o'clock in the morning, threw myself on my bed, and slept the sleep of Napoleon after Waterloo. By the time I awoke it was dark outside.
The next entry: "My ammunition was no good!... But I am at a loss to understand what they are trying to do with ME.... Certainly I don't look like a very important personage in my present state.... Yet my captors are not treating me very badly ... aside from being locked up in this deserted villa with its broken chairs and vacant picture frames and general air of hasty abandonment there's nothing to disturb the tranquillity of my reflections except the recurring tramp of the muffled sentry below my broken window ... this building has a sort of Byzantine cut in its architectural design.... On the other side of the valley there's a minaret or two visible through the smoky haze.... Off to the left I can make out quite distinctly the outlines of a Greek Cross.... The road leading toward that Cross looks like the work of a Muscovite engineer, which speaks well for it.... It's built of the same material as the one over the mountains from Tiflis to Vladicaucaz and Kislovodsk.... I MUST BE ON RUSSIAN SOIL!... But what is mystifying to me is, how did that veiled girl of the Métropole manage to know the SENTRY who is guarding my person so methodically down below?... She has been here twice, now, and talks to him very confidentially.... QUATSCH! if she thinks to find any jewelry clinging to my person she'll have to fry me to get it out."
"Then why run after her, disturb her, agitate her imagination!... Oh, I know you well! Listen if you wish me to believe you, come to Kislovodsk in a week's time; we shall be moving thither the day after to-morrow. Princess Mary will remain here longer. Engage lodgings next door to us. We shall be living in the large house near the spring, on the mezzanine floor.
She was pale as marble, but her eyes were sparkling wondrously. "I hate you"... she said. I thanked her, bowed respectfully, and left the room. An hour afterwards a postal express was bearing me rapidly from Kislovodsk. A few versts from Essentuki I recognized near the roadway the body of my spirited horse.
The inhabitants aver that the air of Kislovodsk predisposes the heart to love and that all the romances which have had their beginning at the foot of Mount Mashuk find their consummation here.
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